Chapter 625-Cannon Formation
Translator: ryangohsf
Editor: Nora
After crushing the first wave of players, Zheng He ordered the troops to disembark. He decided to use this time to build up defences between Fengshan County and the harbour.
The navy soldiers were mainly archers. The remaining 30% were light armoured sword-shield soldiers in leather armor. There were no heavy armoured infantry or cavalry.
Apart from these soldiers, there was also the specially built Handgun Unit.
These three soldier types were all relatively fragile. As a result, they were more suited for close combat.
Zheng He knew these facts. When facing the enemy’s city defence, they would be fighting the enemy’s strength with their weakness. Even if they blew open the city gates with their cannons, the sailors who charged into the city would still face a tough situation.
Ideally, they would be able to lead the enemies out of the city once again and fight outside. Consequently, they needed to build up defences. If not, just one cavalry assault could destroy them.
Fortunately, Singapore was too small and did not have any war horses. Cavalry were also the rarest soldier type in Singapore. Even the adventure gamemode players were basically all infantry.
Hei! Hu! Hei! Hu!
The moment the warship approached, hundreds of sailors used their chariots to load up the cannons from the ships. They moved the cannons onto the harbour and pushed them to the designated cannon spots.
It took an hour to move twenty cannons into position.
The entire voyage squadron had a total of three hundred cannons. Apart from leaving some for the middle troops, the east troops had one hundred left. Zheng He's plan was to at least move half of these cannons onto land and create a cannon formation.
Amusingly, the Ming Dynasty Cannons could only shoot in a straight line. Hence, even if they aimed at the city walls, they could only hit it directly and not shoot over it.
As a result, during a siege battle, the only use of these cannons would be to blow open the city walls or gates. Furthermore, these cannons were extremely cumbersome and burdensome.
Luckily, the sailors had Zheng He, who was great with firearms. He knew how to use them to their fullest extent. In straight up battles, the strength of the cannons was undeniable, and they were potent defensive killing machines.
Hence, Zheng He grasped this chance where the enemy was caught off guard and rushing back to the city to use the harbour as their back garden and build a perfect defence.
The soldiers grabbed materials from nearby to build walls formed from bag after bag of sand and planks of wood. At the highest point, they lined up fifty cannons; the east troops would rely on this.
The overall firepower of the formation was split into four levels based on their ranges.
At the first level, they had archers. Their arrows shot the furthest, and they had the greatest killing range. Their weakness would be that the moment the enemy broke through, their killing strength would be drastically reduced.
The second level was a net of cannons. After charging past the arrow rain, the enemy would face the strikes of these cannons. Be it in terms of killing power or impact, the cannons were the strongest.
The third level was the support from the handgun troops. Based on the navy personnel arrangements, each lost would have one handgun platoon; each division would have eight platoons.
During an active battle, handguns were considered a burden due to their complicated mechanisms and bad accuracy. However, in terms of pure defense work, the handgun troops hidden behind the sandbags had an exceedingly high killing strength.
The fourth and final level of strength were the sword-shield soldiers. Their mission was to protect the safety of everyone else.
Any enemy who managed to charge past the first three levels of defense would have to face the cleanup crew of the sword-shield soldiers.
Along with a logical intersecting net of fire and strong defensive work, this formation was basically the nightmare of all enemies.
Zheng He's use of firearms was truly the best out of all the generals; no one could compare to him in this aspect.
Of course, his plan had a big ‘if’, which was whether or not the enemies would attack their base. If not, and the enemies decided to go around it, the firepower net would be rendered useless.
Alternatively, if the enemy decided to hide in the city and not come out, Zheng He would also consider the mission a failure. Zheng He did not forget that his mission was to attract all the attention of the enemy players. If they reached a stalemate, the enemies could teleport back to Lion City at any moment.
Fengshan County, city wall.
One could say that Zheng He's plan was exceedingly smart.
The army did not disembark at first. Instead, they sent a round of cannon fire to scare off the enemy. Following which, they chased the win and successfully disembarked.
One could see that without this first wave, the enemy could cause them numerous problems.
What about now?
The terrified players could only stare at the city walls and look on as the enemy busied themselves. With shocking speed, the construction of the defences were built up without obstruction.
However, amongst the Singaporean players, there were still many fearless ones.
While the east troops were moving the cannons, some players suggested they head out to prevent the enemy.
However, after the first loss, the Fengshan Lord did not dare to open the city gates. In his eyes, as long as they defended the city, the territory would be fine with the support of the players.
The moment they attacked, if something went wrong, the enemy could strike back.
After balancing the pros and cons, the Fengshan Lord naturally chose the safer strategy. The so-called country's honour was a pure concept to the common players; it had no personal interest within.
However, the Lords and guild leaders needed to make a choice.
The Fengshan Lord’s choice was not surprising at all.
……
With that, a morning had slowly crept away under this standoff. The next morning, more and more players teleported over from Lion City to assist the frontline. The number of player troops approached thirty thousand.
Apart from combat occupation players, some work occupation players had also arrived at Fengshan County. They provided medicine, equipment, and items for free to the frontline fighters.
Countless players filled Fengshan County. Each one of them were extremely solemn, and they brimmed with the desire to fight for their country.
These two opposite feelings mixed together, stimulating the players desire to fight and not ask for anything in return. Even those who died had no complaints, and they even felt a little proud of themselves.
In the face of war, the Singaporean players did not cower and stood united. The goal of the entire country had become one when facing danger.
At noon, the number of players gathered in Fengshan County had passed fifty thousand. Apart from the Temasek Mercenary Group, more than half of the other adventure gamemode players had gathered here.
Such a scale once again instilled the players with confidence.
When they saw the enemy troops start to construct a wall outside the city, how could the Singaporean players swallow the anger and frustration they felt? More and more people wanted to fight, each wave of people bigger than the last.
"This is our territory; we can't let the enemy contaminate it. We have to fight!" someone hollered.
"Fight! Fight! Fight!"
The sounds of the people pushing for war pierced through the clouds, and even the east troops could hear their voices.
When Pei Donglai saw this scene, his face turned extremely solemn. An enemy with such high morale could not be underestimated. Thinking back to the admiral’s words, Pei Donglai felt even more ashamed.
Zheng He remained incredibly calm and ordered his troops to enter a level 1 state of alert. As time went on, their defence work grew stronger and stronger.
However, this battle was not just one battle; it was one part of a bigger war, so he had to end it quickly. Hence, Zheng He hoped that the enemy would come out to fight them soon.
Thinking up this point, Zheng He ordered the troops to shout at the city to provoke the enemy. He wanted to make the already sensitive and angry enemy to start to battle early.
"All you tortoises up there listen up; do you dare to fight with me, your grandfather?"
"They were scared till they started peeing, how would they dare to come out?" someone purposely replied.
Hahahaha!
The uncontrolled laughter filled the air.
"It's no use you weaklings, stop looking and run back to your parents."
"These bunch of cowards are just afraid of our cannons and don't dare to attack."
Hahahaha!
The soldiers were all massive brutes; these words of scolding could be considered relatively civilized.
When the Singaporean players on the city walls heard these words, they were infuriated. They finally could not take it anymore, and their anger erupted like a volcano.
At this moment, even if the Fengshan County Lord wanted to stop them, he could not. If he wanted to forcefully do so, the first one to get hurt would probably be him.
The explosion of a volcano was a sign from the heavens; humans could stop not it.
For the Fengshan County Lord to hold the crown of the best territory in Singapore, he naturally possessed some skill. Seeing that he had no way to stop them, he had to go with the flow.
After the first lesson, he broke up his troops and sent them into the player squads to take charge of battle commands.
The players accepted these arrangements. They knew that as adventure gamemode players, they were used to killing beasts and had no experience in warfare.
Singapore was small, so the killings between Lords in the wilderness basically did not occur at this place. As a result, this place seemed extremely tranquil, and things like mercenary guilds did not exist.
Comparing the two, Singapore seemed like a paradise cut off from the world. The problem was that this was a game, this was the wilderness, and such a thing did not exist.
When war comes, any fairytale would cease to exist.
The chaos lasted for an hour before the players finally managed to reorganize themselves. Forty thousand players waltzed out of the city gates and head directly for the enemy formation.
In front of the army were five thousand rare cavalries.
They were cavalry, but their mounts came in a wide variety. Apart from horses, there were animals such as boars, leopards, tigers, and wolves.
Such a sight could be called extremely rare.